PART 2/2 OF THE DOUBLE UPDATE!! SO IF YOU HAVEN’T READ THE FIRST, GO BACK AND DO IT!!!

Wrote this chapter to Jacob’s Prayer by Emile Mosseri

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Nikola’s P.O.V

Window sills were not my first choice for reading. Most often, they were neither long enough nor wide enough, and so why would I willingly read in a cramped space?

This window sill, however, defied the usual oddities of its counterparts. It was wonderfully long, enough so that even with my legs stretched out and crossed at the ankles, there was still room. It was also amply wide, enough so that I could settle in the posture of my choosing with the support of the woolly pillow beneath me.

It was in this wonderful window that I’d been reading all morning, not including the time I’d taken to eat breakfast, unprompted.

Neo chuffs his delight at that, but it’s a weak thing. While he was proud of me for continuing some format of life without… Hagen…

… he wasn’t happy about it in some respects. Despite my promises that he could pursue a relationship with Zyair to his delight, he wanted us both ‘happy’. He refused to see that my happiness could be achieved without him.

I would not say that I was happy now. I was not.

I still struggled to find my breath in the night after I woke up from dreams of him and found myself predictably alone. And it still felt like a chasm had opened up within me where love and devotion had once been, and I did not ever imagine it would be completely filled. But, with time, I was sure it could become some semblance of… something.

Something I could live with. Something that I could find joy in, no matter how fleeting. Something to be comfortable in.

I never imagined such a thing possible in the past, when he had been my everything, the only option to fill my world with, but without him, the world has gradually begun to show itself.

It was still made up of muted greys and too much noise, noise only he would ever muffle, but it was still beautiful in its own way.

I often gardened with Kalem. I spent mornings talking with Ma and evenings cooking with Dad. I read, explored, ate, and discovered other ways I might live without him.

Ma was pleased for it, and Dad as well, though I could see the apprehension he tried to hide behind his firm smiles. Appa was all too happy for my exploits, ‘growth’ he called it, which completely defied his proclamations of it all ‘hitting me’.

Sometimes I imagined that it still hadn’t, that I was simply living in a sort of purgatory bliss, and one day it would end, but it’d already been two months since the end of us, and it was only getting better.

Things must go up before they come down — Neo whispers carefully, not meaning to frighten, only warn.

That’s true — I admit with some reluctance, but if that was the case, then I intended to enjoy what I could of this ‘up’ period before the descent began.

My thoughts refocus themselves on the present as the familiar creak of the library door opening drifts through the air. I don’t bother glancing up from my book, knowing it was Dad making his rounds.

He did it once every other hour, checking up on me, and once he’d had his peek and seen that I was fine, he’d ‘sneak’ out again.

His careful footfalls approach as always, though more poorly masked than usual, and then, I feel his eyes on me.

Or… they’re supposed to be his eyes.

They’re not. I know within an instant. In the fleeting seconds that pass between one breath and the next, I know it’s him.

Only… it can’t be… so I look up to defy the truth, but I can’t, because when I do, I find him, standing there.

Our eyes meet, and it’s like I can’t breathe again, but air had always evaded me whenever he was near. And he wasn’t just near, he was here.

Hagen… was here.

Neo sits up, pawing desperately at me to get control so that he could rush forward and wrap his arms around our mate, and reunite with Zyair who I could already feel clawing to do the same. But I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t even move.

Outside of my own body, I feel myself tense in my place.

I feel eyes widen. My heart, lurch and sink.
I feel what’s left of our bond tighten, tugging desperately on both our ends.
I feel the world stop spinning for the first time since we’d separated, and with the stillness returning, so does colour.

I blink, slowly, daring the image of him to remain present once I’m done, and it does so defiantly.

He wasn’t as I’d left him— bright, and full. He’s the complete opposite.

He’s smaller. Far smaller. Too small.His hair is a wild mess, and not like it usually is when he’s too lazy to be bothered with styling it. It’s wild in the manner that suggests it hadn’t only been ignored, but forgotten entirely. Sections of it, matted, and others look far too greasy.

His eyes are darker than I remember, heavy with something that tries to expose itself through our bond, but it’s blurred within my shock. But those eyes, they’re dark, dragged down by the bags beneath, and shining with guilt and fear and joy and regret, but mostly, with hope.

“Nik,” my name trembles on his tongue, breaking slightly as he drags a foot forward.

I watch the movement, frozen everywhere but at my chest where my heart and lungs work in an overdriven tandem to keep me functioning.

My lips part to ask the irrepressible questions swirling within my thunderous mind.

How was he here?

How did he find me?

What did he want?

Why was he here?

Except, as I stare at him in this state, so shattered it twists my guts to gaze upon him, one of the answers comes to me with glaring obviousness.

“Oh,” I release the breath caged within my lungs as understanding dawns.

It’s easier to breathe now, knowing what was happening. It was only a matter of time, I suppose. I’d told him I was done, and that I couldn’t do it myself, and wasn’t two months enough time for him to realise that he could?

“You’re here to break our bond,” I say, closing the book in my lap and settling my palm over it. I try to brace myself.

I can not.

All at once, those staggering emotions dancing within his gaze slide away, replaced entirely by horror. Hagen shakes his head quickly, stumbling forward another two steps as he says, “No. N-No. No, I’m not.”

His hands raise, like a perpetrator begging for mercy, and I stare at them with more confusion.

“I’m not,” he continues as he stares at me. He hadn’t looked away from me since our eyes had found one another again. He had barely blinked. He was staring at me, as if I was some great token or gift, some treasure he’d been searching all his life to find, and the weight of his gaze felt far more intense than it’d ever been.

I take it smooth, trying breath beneath it.

He swallows, “I-I came to find you, to apologise and—” his words stop there as he stares at me, looking horribly lost and equally terrified. “I’m so sorry, Nik.”

Something terrible trembles within my heart. It makes it squeeze down on itself and my eyes sting as I look away from him and to the spot between his eyes instead.

“You were right. I was scared,” he continues quickly. “I was scared of what I wanted, who I am when I’m with you, a-and I panicked, and that’s no excuse. There’s not a single excuse for what I did, and even if there was… I— I’m sorry. I’m so so sorry.”

The ache spreads within my chest, and I’m not sure if it’s worsening or getting better, but I still can’t find it in myself to look at him truly.

“I wanted what happened between us—”

“I know that,” I cut in. I’d always known that.

Hagen’s throat bobs as he nods, “I did too. Even then. B-But I lashed out at you ‘cause you were there and I could, a-and… I’ve always done that. I-I always blamed you, and I’m sorry.”

I meet his gaze for a fleeting instant, just long enough to see if these words were truly his, or something else’s. But they are. They’re all his words, his found truths and our pain.

“I’m sorry for everything,” he croaks this apology, and in it, I hear the tears that spill down his cheeks. “I ruined us first. I’ve been thinking about everything, a-and I don’t know how it all got so fucked up.”

I did.

I loved him, before I even knew what love truly was, and how deep mine for him already was.

That had scared him, because he was older, enough to know more about love, and how it came in different forms. He didn’t want the form I claimed.

He pulled away, and I tried to hold onto him, so tightly that I clawed at him.

Then, he escaped me and I was left with his skin beneath my nails.

I tried to grasp again, but that only drove him further away. Then I tried to pick the skin away and hide it, to make it better, to heal the wounds, even while I ignored the ones he’d left on me as he fled.

He came back to me, and I, him. I hid my nails and gave him my love again. Again and Again. But it wasn’t enough.

“Nik,” he says my name again, and I’ve never hated and loved a sound so much.

I hate myself more. I hate myself for the way amidst all the anger and pain, hearing my name on his lips still does something to me. It shouldn’t.

“Why are you here?” I ask before he can say my name again.

That stops him in the midst of another step. It’s one that would bring him only five paces away from me. I recalled him taking each step, but I couldn’t remember how he’d gotten so close so quickly.

“You came all the way here to apologise?” I ask, and I do not mean to diminish his apology, but a part of me hasn’t allowed myself to hear it yet.

It’s too fresh— it’s still happening, and there’s so much anger and pain that hardens my heart, that I don’t think I want to hear it.

Hagen swallows again, and this time, he wrings the corners of his burrowed shirt with his too-thin fingers. His heart hammers, beating like an unrelenting acoustic drum whose rhythm seems to pulse behind his fretful eyes.

“That, and f-for you,” he tries to steady these words. I hear how hard he tries, but they spill out in a nervous stammer.

Our bond wavers; its ruins protrude from his side that he tries to rebuild while I guard at the gates of mine.

“For me?” I ask as if they’re words I’m uttering for the first time.

I look at Hagen again, forcing myself to hold his gaze, and it’s almost as if several lifetimes pass between us.

The ones we’d already lived; where we were friends, and then something estranged, then lovers, then… this.

“For you,” he repeats, and this time, it’s stronger. “I want you, Nikola.”

My eyes widen, and I recognise the convoluted feeling that overcomes me as shock.

It alters this entire interaction, the reason behind his presence, and his appearance. He wasn’t here to break our bond or apologise— he was here for me. He wanted me.

That takes me into a darker, colder place; indifference becomes indignation, disarray becomes order, and my hurt blooms stronger.

He sees it. I know he sees it, because his tears fall faster and suddenly he’s claiming three of those five steps just to get to me.

“No,” I snap, nails digging into the book’s binds.

“Nik,” he whimpers, with his hands outstretched.

“You—” I have to stop to laugh because this can not be happening. “You want me? Now? No, Hagen. You don’t. You can not.”

“I do,” he argues, gaze imploring. “I do. Nik. I want you. A-All, I want is you.”

This must be a joke. Some terrible farce put on by Goddess herself to punish me for some crime I must’ve committed in a past life.

Or maybe it’s another punishment for simply daring to be alive, as if my own being as a hybrid wasn’t precisely that.

It has to be that, or a dream, because it can’t be reality. I refuse it to be.

Except, Hagen is here and there’s nothing but serious intent and longing in those familiar eyes. Those eyes that had leashed me for my entire life.

“No,” I state, shaking my head. “No. I told you, I’m done,” I remind him while my heart rages in my chest, naturally trying to catch up to his. “I meant it, Hagen. I. Am. Done.”

Hagen’s brown eyes flood, and it’s a sight I loathe, a sight I want to fix and that just makes me even angrier because I shouldn’t. I should be done, but this was Hagen… my Hagen. Always my Hagen.

“I-I know I messed up, t-that I kept messing up, and that I hurt you—”

“Hurt me?” I echo, shaking my head. “You didn’t hurt me, Hagen. I wish all you did was hurt me. You destroyed me.”

Hagen’s whimper claims a new part of me, breaking it on impact, and when his sobs follow, my soul threatens to careen with his as the magic in my veins vibrates to fix this.

“I’m sorry,” he cries, shaking from head to toe as he clutches his hands to his chest. “I’m sorry.”

“That’s not enough.” I wish it was.

I know I shouldn’t. I wish I didn’t.

“Nik—”

There are only two more steps left, and I pray to Goddess that he doesn’t take them. There was a barrier around me, but I didn’t know how steady it would hold against him when he was the only force that knew exactly how to make it relent.

“There’s no us, Hagen,” I bite out with the strength of my own rage. “There’s no me and you. You made sure of that.”

Hagen doesn’t take those steps. He can’t, because my words take something from him, sending him to his knees.

“Nikola, please,” he sobs behind clenched eyes. The wrongness of it sends Neo in disarray and brings tears to my eyes that I have to blink away. “Please.”

I want to pick him up, to soothe him, but I can’t, so I cling to the book in my hands instead.

I close my eyes, pushing the useless anger away for now. It was better to deal with that in private, away from him. He’d already seen too much of me— claimed too much— he didn’t deserve my anger as well.

I calm, and sigh, relinquishing the known truth instead, “We’re not good for each other, Hagen.”

“We are!” He denies with an aching sob. “I-I was just too stupid to see it, b-but we are!”

“We only hurt each other.”

Hagen shakes his head, over and over, denying it as if it wasn’t a truth we both knew too well.

“Hagen—”

“No!” He shouts, cutting me off as he opens his reddened eyes to look at me. “No, I’m not giving up on this. No! We’re— w-we…” his lips tremble as he breaks, “Please, Nik. Please! J-Just one chance. I-I just need one chance and I promise, I-I won’t waste it.”

My heart hammers, desperate to believe him. The bond and link flares high, drowning out my senses, but it’s nothing compared to my love for him.

Goddess, I love him. I love him so much it hurts to be close to him, to even look upon him and know that he’s mine, and that was before he was like this— distraught and desperate for just the chance to be with me.

It’s all I’ve ever wanted. All I prayed for, worked for, begged for.

But now that it’s finally here, it comes behind the manifestation of my hatred for him.

Because just as I love him, I hate him. I hate him for his cowardice, for his selfishness, for his beauty, for his laughs, his smiles. I hate him for the way he says my name, for the way his gaze on me feels like coming home.I hate him for denying me, denying us— for wasting us.

I hate him… and I love him.

“I’m not leaving,” he suddenly declares vehemently. Sitting up, he wipes his smiling tears away to fix those all-consuming brown eyes on me. “Y-You can say no, you c-can break our bond a-and I’ll still be here. I-I’ll always be here, w-waiting for you.”

My disbelief must show on my face because a fire lights behind Hagen’s eyes and I spot familiar stubbornness.

“You’re it for me, Nik,” he croaks, his hands spreading open for me. “You. Nothing else, a-and I’ll die waiting for you if I have to.”

I want to believe it. I want to believe in his devotion, but I wasn’t a fool.

Hagen said this now, but he didn’t mean it, and I refused to keep deluding myself by living in worlds constructed by hope.

Sliding from the window sill, I step onto the ground in front of Hagen, and as he cranes his head up to look at me, I have to clench my fingers to stop myself from reaching for him.

One step remains between us.

“I told you. I’m done, Hagen.”

Hagen’s brown eyes hold mine, wide and scared, but he doesn’t cry. Not any more. A strange calm seems to settle over him as he stares up at me through his tears and nods slowly.

“Th-Then I’ll wait,” he replies earnestly, like a vow.

I laugh, but it’s dry, brittle, and on the edge of breaking, “Forever?”

“It won’t be forever,” he counters so quickly and with so much surety that it sparks anger within me. “It won’t, b-but if it is, then, yes.”

I stare at him disbelievingly.

Had he lost his mind on the way here? He must’ve, because this wasn’t the man I knew.

“I’m going to wait for you, Nikola,” he promises with so much longing, sending a thrill to my chest that I’m quick to stamp out.

“I do not want you anymore, Hagen.”

Hagen hiccups, looking down at the ground as his back trembles, “T-That’s okay.”

He wasn’t listening.

“I do not want our bond.”

“Okay.”

“You’re fighting for something that’s not there,” I groan with frustration I can’t bury. “There’s no point in waiting.”

“You waited,” he whispers before he lifts his tearful gaze back to me. “You waited, w-when there was no point, w-when I didn’t want you, or our bond. I-I’ll wait.”

I stare at him, unable to blink or speak in the face of his blatant certainty. It’s infuriating, it’s surprising, it’s aggravating, it’s igniting.

“Fine,” I snap, circling him widely before I stride quickly from the room, needing room, needing space from him, needing to escape him. “Do whatever you want.”

I had waited, but that was because I loved Hagen like nothing in this world could ever dare.

I loved him deeper than the earth’s crust, and with more devotion than a legion of angels. And I still loved him, because there was no one else but Hagen and there never would be. Even apart, he would always hold my heart, but it wasn’t like that for him.

Hagen would never— could never— love me as I loved him, so this… this was just a waste of time, and when he eventually gave up— because he would— then… then…

….who knew what would happen then…..

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The wayyyyy these next few chapters are going to be so much fucking fun!!!!!!!!! 

Like Hagen really is not giving up and it’s giving early Nikola, with a twinge of psycho-neediness and I love it!!!!

Thoughts???????

Thoughts on them meeting again for the first time since the split???? On it being Nik’s POVVV

You know, all the way through the book, I always thought when the time came for his scene it would be from Hagen’s POV, and then I really just couldn’t do it. I needed to see Nik looking at Hagen as a wreck and what would be his thought process.

Him thinking the only reason Hagen would come that far would be to break the bond broke my fucking heart! ughhh.

But they’re together now and we’re about to EATTTT!!! PEOPLE I’M TELLING YOU!!!! THIS IS GONNA BE ENEMIES TO LOVERS, LIKE ONE ENEMY AND ONE LOVER, AND THE ENEMY IS NIK

ughhhh, so excited to see Hagen give this his all and work for his man

with all the updates this month, I’m going to be focusing solely on Patreon extras next week, so don’t miss me too much!

PLEASE REMEMEBR TO VOTE AND COMMENT IF YOU HAVEN’T ALREADY

Love you all and Until next time,
BYEEEEEE HUMANSSSSSSSSSS